As some of you know, I write a daily devotional called “The Oil Change”. I chose that name because of something that happened to me with the very first bike I owned.
It was a Kawasaki LTD 550. I loved it. I was 16 and enjoying the idea of owning my very own motorcycle. I rode it everywhere. I did a few trips on it. I put a lot of miles on it. What I didn’t know what that I needed to take care of it. No one had ever told me that it was important to check the oil level from time to time. I didn’t know that I needed to do Oil Changes every so often. I just rode it and rode it and rode it.
Then came the night when I learned a valuable lesson. I was at my youth pastor’s house. We had been hanging out together for the evening, and it was quite late. It was cold out. I fired up the bike to head home, and didn’t want to wake the neighbours, so I took off without letting it warm up. Within no time, I was on the Queensway doing 120 km/h.
Suddenly there was a loud noise, and then a heavy “clanking” sound. I pulled over. Sure enough, the engine was toast.
I learned how to take a part an engine after that. One of the things we discovered when we started the dismantling of the engine was how little oil the bike had. Not only was there almost no oil in the motor, the oil that was there was so dirty and broken down, that it wasn’t much better than water.
I learned how important oil is to a motorcycle’s motor. You can’t expect to enjoy the ride without doing some basic maintenance from time to time. If you try to ignore the maintenance, you will eventually break down.
Our spiritual journey is a great ride. God has invited us to experience an incredible adventure. But if we truly want to enjoy the ride, we need to make sure that we are taking care of basic maintenance. For the spiritual journey, this involves keeping our relationship with Christ fresh and real.
That’s why I write the Oil Change devotional. I do it for my own sake — it helps me to write out my thoughts. And, I do it in hopes that it will help others in their own journey.
If you haven’t signed up, I encourage you to do so today. You can sign up here.
